


The Ghost in the Machine

by Denebola



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1449541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denebola/pseuds/Denebola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her body is a tool. The purpose of her soul is still under investigation. Steve Rogers seems to think that both are designed for enjoying ice-cream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost in the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own. This started shouldering its way through my brain a few hours after I saw The Winter Soldier. If you're reading this, you probably understand. Contains spoilers for the film.

_“Hey.”_

_“Hey.”_

_“...”_

_“So, how have you be-”_

_“Why did you send me that picture?”_

It took three months for her to Google herself. She knew that she would eventually, but the thought was less harrowing when it was only idle. As expected, they were all out there; every name, every kill. The especially colorful photos of corpses had even made their way onto macabre niche sites, where they were accompanied by SHIELD Level 8 classified ID photos of her face to serve as visual aid to the imaginations of those so fascinated by what must have been an exhilaratingly gruesome spectacle to behold in real time.

The ads displaying on blogs and websites that had been dedicated to her since the Great Upload were usually amusing. Garish flashing banners advertising sites to purchase “real” spy gadgets, sporting gear, Halloween costumes, weight-loss drugs, porn. How exactly was it determined which types of consumers she appealed to, what products to market to them, and on a scale of one-to-ten, how serious of a threat were these people to international security?

Investigating herself wouldn't be so damningly educational if she could remember them all. Everything she'd ever been was readily available and there was no more hiding behind psychology or sex-appeal or security clearance. A faded, minute part of herself, stupid with hope and freshly bolstered by a pair of clear blue eyes, whispered treacherously that the sick burn in her gut could subside if she were only capable of making a list by heart and crossing them out with simple strokes of a pen once she'd done her penance in their names. Tie a pretty bow on it all and breathe in the fresh air of a clear blue sky, the past behind her. She'd been told once when she was young that “shame is healthy for the soul” by some mark she'd later electrocuted during his bathtime, but shame was a warm blanket of inaction. Her soul, if enough of it survived to be called such, was too restless to wrap itself up in useless contrition.

Her body was a tool, and it was streamlined and specialized to be up to any task. Steve's body was also a tool, but just like his heart, it was something he felt existed solely to give support to others. She'd worked to mold herself into whatever she needed whenever she needed it, and trained the remains to be easily discarded, but Steve was both gifted and a gift and every day he gave everything he had back to the world. It was a breed of perfect harmony that she was incapable of achieving. No blue skies ahead, only red streaked gray condemned to yearn for the relief of sunset.

In a fit of whimsy, she'd first looked up Steve. Not a whole lot she didn't already know about Captain America, and what she didn't, she could have guessed. And then she'd searched Maria, just for kicks. No surprise, that woman had been a terror behind the wheel since age fourteen. She didn't need to type Clint's name – and had no desire to visit whatever dark closet that chasing Nick's bright, underlined skeletons would dump her into.

Steve had Googled her, too. Five months into the post-SHIELD world, she'd checked her “Cap” folder, an unenthusiastic habit she'd developed to alleviate her guilt for filtering Steve's emails straight into their own largely unread column in the first place. Gathered amongst the numerous forwards of things like stories about kittens and biker gangs giving away flowers and misleading urban myths about the human body that she refrained from correcting him on for hilarity's sake, was a message from Steve with an attachment and the title **“Free ice-cream!”** Inside was a link to a printable coupon for a free carton of _Ben & Jerry's_. The attachment was a blurry picture of herself at around three years old, wearing a grin and with a waffle cone in her hand.

She'd immediately thrown her phone, the tremor in her hands the only miracle preventing it from sailing out the nearby open window to its death as she'd intended. It took almost twenty minutes for her heart-rate to steady. A week had passed before she pulled it together enough to call him.

She was only barely able to restrain the hurt in her voice. “Why did you send me that picture?”

“I had a feeling that was why you haven't called me back lately. Last week I bought a box of hybrid fruit that were a cross between grapes and apples, and I wanted to share. They were... well, we've seen a lot of swell things, but they were out-of-this-world, Nat.”

She ignored the teasing warmth in his voice. “In an age of cheap unlimited texting, no one calls anyone back anymore.”

“Well, I'd rather communicate with my mouth than with my fingers.”

“...”

“Are you there? You're upset with me.”

“I'm not pissed anymore, I'm just curious by nature. And violent, coincidentally.”

His voice became soft, yet insistent, like how his arms felt when they shielded her from oncoming fire behind his shield. “...Natasha, I sent it because it was your birthday. Didn't you know?” 

“I've had a lot of them.” She was too stunned to say anything else.

“Unfortunately for you, you're talking to someone who that excuse won't fly with.”

“Versions, not years. So can I assume that you got that intel from my files scattered across the internet? You stumble onto any convincing photoshops of me naked during your hunt?”

He made a curt noise that was caught between a choke and a gasp. “...Since the chatty megalomaniacal robo-scientist fella we ran into wasn't kind enough to share the date, I had to do my research. I didn't mean to overstep my bounds.”

“Then _why the photo_?”

“Because I wanted your present to be something I knew you'd like, and I thought it would have been nice if for just one day, you could have liked yourself, too.”

She sighed, deeply. “Steve, that was a long time ago.”

“So are my best memories. Doesn't mean they depreciate in value. Maybe you can't forgive yourself, but you can forgive that little girl one day a year and feed her some damn ice-cream.”

“Little late now.”

“Fine, come to my place. I've got dozens of birthdays to make up for and a freezer full of ice-cream.”

“I don't know, Steve. Sounds a bit... after-school special to me.”

“You don't understand. There's so many that they've fallen out and hit me a few times. It's dangerous. You'll like it.”

She smiled at that. None of the online databases mentioned Steve Rogers' sweet tooth. Maybe it was possible to be more than the sum of the heinous accounts on her ledger.

“Some other time. I'm actually around fourteen-thousand kilos away from you, about to make a few short-term friendships with some long-term slave traffickers.”

“Ah. Well, I won't hold you up. Have fun.” He sounded sad. She had to ask.

“Hey... when you were “researching” me... didn't anything shock you?”

“Look, I may not be the most “net savvy” guy, but I found next to nothing about the person who you are, Natasha. Your psych profile is _outdated_. Just proves, can't believe everything you read on the internet.”

“...Thanks, Steve.”

“Give 'em hell.”

It took forty-three minutes, a flirty smile, a fun-size emp grenade and an armed escort of several unhappy inmates to the filthiest prison in Thailand before she decided to change the wallpaper on her phone to the picture of the little redheaded girl with short, chubby legs and grass-stained elbows. Another photograph of a body she had forgotten about. This one built for catching fireflies and eating sweets. Was the child just one more droplet swept away in a river of death? There was a complete accumulation of her every act floating brazenly in space for the parsing, and not a single search hit could reveal if the girl was alive or dead. She would have to figure it out old school style.

People spent too much time on the internet these days, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> First story in this fandom. First posted story in years. First completed story in even longer. Thus is the power of the Steve/Natasha chemistry/friendship/whatever the hell that wonderful dynamic was. Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment.


End file.
